


here they come again to jack my style

by sleepyshamrocks



Series: a melancholy town where we always smile [2]
Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, i couldn't resist writing more high school posie, so here it is babes, under this roof we stan four (4) powerful and oblivious girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 09:40:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19374103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyshamrocks/pseuds/sleepyshamrocks
Summary: So yeah, they made out once inside a closet for an absurd amount of time for people who claimed to have just done it out of respect of the game rules, and it’s chill, it’s cool, it’s totally fine, because they were both drunk and it was a game and it wasn’t like her heart felt like it was literally going to burst out her chest when they finally stumbled out together and Penelope winked at her while wiping her lips, lazy and coy and incredibly hot.orJosie is in denial. Penelope is trying. Hope and Lizzie are getting there. HSAU pt 2.





	here they come again to jack my style

**Author's Note:**

> i'm in a legacies drought rn (aren't we all?) so i wrote this to quench myself and hopefully you guys, too.

She’s dreaming about giant cabbage people trudging down a boiling lake in a soup-related suicide mission when something shakes her awake.

Three sleepy blinks and a groggy “mmh?” later, it becomes apparent that vibrations are the result of Lizzie’s foot hitting the underside of the bed in an attempt to wake her up.

“Jo, Jo, Jo.”

“Go away,” Josie mumbles into her pillow. “Go disturb dad, I need my sleep.”

Her sister sighs and decidedly does not go away, flopping onto the bed and lying back so that her head is on Josie’s side like a watermelon-sized thorn. “I need your advice. _Love_ advice. I’m calling special sister time.”

“I told you to stop calling it that. We’re not characters in a pre-teen Disney show. Besides,” Josie lifts her head just to glare down at her sister, “I thought you weren’t talking to me because of the whole Rafael saga, which was, is, and will always be the dumbest thing you’ve ever gotten mad at me about.”

Lizzie has the decency to look guilty as she plays with the hem of her pyjama shirt. “That wasn’t my best moment,” she admits. “Being mad at you over some boneheaded jock was stupid, and I can’t believe we lost five days of our sisterhood because of it so, um, I uh…,”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it.” 

“It’s embarrassing,” Lizzie whines.

“That’s why you have to say it.”

“Fffffine.” Her sister squeezes her eyes shut and mumbles, “I’m sorry.”

Josie lightly smacks her on the shoulder. “What was that?”

“Jeez, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let a guy get between us, I’m sorry I was jealous of you even though you told me not to be, I’m sorry that I shaded you in front of your best friend. Now don’t be a dick about it.”

“That sounded more like it.” Josie grins and turns over on her back, pats the space next to her and waits for Lizzie to snuggle into the covers like she always does. “Now what was this about needing love advice? Must be a lost cause if you’re coming to _me_.”

“Actually, you’re the only person who can help with this.” Lizzie’s tone is suspiciously neutral in the way that Josie knows is actually her trying to mask her nervousness, so her interest is piqued in the face of what could potentially be Big News. “Uh, you know your best friend Hope?”

“I know of her,” Josie comments. 

“Shut up. Anyway, um,” Lizzie breathes through her teeth, “err, she’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”

Josie makes a face. “Ewrgh.”

“We kissed at the party. I don’t know, it was just spin-the-fucking-bottle so I’m sure it didn’t mean shit to her and it’s whatever but also like…she’s cute and she seems fun and I’m so over the punch thing so I wouldn’t be opposed if you invited her over again some time,” Lizzie says, trying her best to sound casual.

Big News indeed. 

“Lizzie has a crush, Lizzie has a crush,” Josie sings, cackling when her sister pokes at her side in faux-anger.

“Jesus, stop being dead weight and dish out the wisdom I know you’re capable of coming up with.” 

“Invite her to one of your soccer games,” Josie suggests, and she pats herself on the back for already doing something productive so early in the morning. Setting her sister and best friend up together counts. “She’s gonna see you all sweaty and glorious and I know for a fact,” her voice lowers conspiratorially, “that she thinks your spider legs are hot, even though I have no idea why she’d think that about those pasty, spindly Groot limbs of yours.”

“They do go on for miles, don’t they?” Lizzie admires her stretched-out legs hanging off the bed, ignoring the disgusted sound Josie makes at the display.

“So what about you?” she prompts, her voice annoyingly teasing. “Hope and I weren’t the only ones getting some action in there. You and Park were going at it for hours. It was disturbing.”

Josie’s heart jumps at the mention of Penelope’s name. “Penelope?” she says meekly. 

“Yes, Penelope. I would’ve given you a high five when you were done but I think I was using all my brainpower to not vomit.” Lizzie hums thoughtfully. “Did you talk to her at school?”

Just like that, Josie’s good mood goes out the window, flies straight past the balcony garden and hits the ground with a pathetic thud. “No. I’ve been trying to avoid her like the plague. I’m not ready for whatever slimy bullshit she’s gonna say, with her killer grin and cocked eyebrow and smooth words and –,” It’s Lizzie’s turn to make a disgusted face. “Whatever. The point is, I already let her charm her way into my pants one time. It’s not happening again.”

“YOU LET HER INTO YOUR PA –,”

Lizzie stops hollering when a hand lands on her mouth and there’s a scuffle where they try to wrestle each other into submission. Josie wins the fight and uses her thighs to pin her sister down on the bed, makes sure the blonde’s arms are out of commission too in case she’s planning on playing dirty.

“Wrong choice of words, didn’t happen, but the point still stands,” Josie pants. 

Lizzie sports a shit-eating grin. “God, I can’t believe you got it going with Penelope Park, of all people. Your literal sworn enemy? This is a slow burn waiting to happen.” 

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m going to ignore it. Penelope and I had a one-time thing and that’s it. Tomorrow, she’s gonna go back to riling me up whenever she gets the chance and I’m gonna go back to ignoring her. What happened at the party was the single intersection in a perpendicular graph. Nothing’s going to change.”

Lizzie eyes her skeptically. “We’ll see about that.”

 

* * *

 

Everything kind of changes. A little.

For one, Penelope apparently didn’t get the unwritten and unsent memo that Josie wants zilch to do with her. She stares and stares at MG until he gets uncomfortable enough to scurry away into another seat and grins when Josie puts a hand up to hide her face, exhaling so hard a pencil starts rolling away. 

“Jojo.”

“Go away, evil one.”

Penelope pouts. “I’m disappointed. You’re normally capable of better insults.”

“Maybe you’re not worth my precious time coming up with better insults.” Josie just wants to bang her head on the desk. “I’m just going to stick with every alteration of the devil, thank you very much.”

“Do I kiss like the devil, too?” She can practically hear Penelope’s annoying smirk, her tone dripping with suggestiveness. Her heart drops to her stomach. 

“We are not talking about that,” Josie forces through clenched teeth. “It’s bad enough that twenty people _heard_ us. I am _not_ willing to further fuel the fire of petty gossip circulating these halls.”

“Sweetie, the whole school already knows.”

“ _What_?” 

“Mm hmm.”

Josie groans, her forehead hitting the desk with a _thump_. “This is a nightmare. This is worse than Sisyphus having to roll that boulder up the hill. Worse than Prometheus having his liver pecked by giant eagles for eternity. I hate it.”

“Oh, come on. Was kissing me really that bad?” Penelope asks, a little miffed. 

That’s the problem. It wasn’t bad at all. Not even the slightest. Josie has been replaying the scene in her head non-stop since it happened and she hates herself for it. Hates Penelope and her magic fingers that light up her skin wherever it travels. Hates looking at her soft, pink lips right now and knowing how good they feel pressed against hers, light kisses peppering her mouth down to her neck. Hates that she made out with the one person in the entire school who manages to grind her gears on the daily and that she _liked_ it. 

“Your face is red,” Penelope points out.

Josie snaps. “Listen. It was a one time thing, okay? We were both drunk and it was a moment of weakness on my part. Let’s just leave it as that and never talk about it again.”

Penelope leans back on her chair. Her expression morphs into something more impassive, and Josie turns away from the weight of her stare.

“Okay.” 

Penelope doesn’t so much as look at her for the rest of the class, opting to chat with Landon, sitting on her right, instead, and Josie knows she should feel relieved, or at the very least appreciative that Penelope is respecting her wishes, but her stomach still churns with disappointment when the other girl packs her things and leaves the class without so much as a goodbye. She has the urge to run after her and apologize for some reason, but what’s there to apologize for? And when has she ever felt bad about trading insults with Penelope?

Josie sighs. There are more important things she should be focusing on.

 

* * *

 

The Penelope Problem solves itself when she slides her tray next to Hope’s on their lunch table and takes a seat like there aren’t two dumbfounded girls staring at her in disbelief.

“What?”

Hope lowers her fork and jabs it in Penelope’s direction. “You’re popular.”

Penelope’s eyebrows furrow in confusion as she digs into her salad. “And?”

“And this isn’t the table for popular people. It’s for nerds and their sidekick best friends. Or, _a_ nerd and her sidekick best friend, at least.” Hope digs her elbow into Josie’s side, who winces.

Penelope shakes her head. “Honestly, Mikaelson. I thought we left labels in 2018. It’s uncool to perpetuate toxic high school stereotypes, you know.”

Hope shuts up and concedes defeat. 

“What are you doing here?” Josie questions. Her heart feels funny, like there’s a hamster running on an exercise wheel behind her chest. 

“Can’t I want to sit on a different table during lunch?” Penelope shoots back, a smile playing on her lips. 

“What are you playing at, Park?”

“Nothing,” Penelope says innocently, “just realized that we never talk outside of our shared classes, and I’m in the mood to make a friend. Friends,” she corrects, shooting a finger gun at Hope, who responds with an OK sign and an awkward smile. 

Josie narrows her eyes suspiciously at her. “If you’re here to talk about –,”

Penelope raises both hands in surrender. “I meant it when I said I wouldn’t. I really am just here to expand my social circle. No hidden agenda, I promise. If you want me to go, I will.”

There’s nothing Josie would like more to take her up on her offer, but Penelope’s earnest expression and the way Hope is glaring at her means that she’s not allowed to be a dick, so in the end she mumbles, “whatever,” and goes back to her cup yogurt, spooning the yellow liquid more aggressively than before. 

They sit in silence as they eat, Josie burning holes into the table and Hope side-eyeing the both of them with a confused expression. Penelope, for her part, doesn’t seem to mind the silence, and when she finishes her lunch she gets up and leaves with a single parting, “bye.”

Hope gets into interrogation mode straight away. “What was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Seriously, Jo. Tell me why I just endured fifteen minutes of Penelope Park eye-fucking you as she ate rabbit food,” Hope points out, stabbing her lasagna. 

Josie smacks Hope’s hand in reflex, and the redhead yelps when the lasagna on her fork falls on her shirt. “Asshole!”

“You’re the asshole. She was _not_ eye-fucking me, dumbass.” 

Hope rolls her eyes and flicks some red sauce at Josie. “Sure, Jan.”

“Hope I swear to _god_ –,”

 

* * *

 

Sometimes Josie curses her own academic overenthusiasm and lack of foresight, because _of course_ staying back an hour to touch up the programming for her robotics club project would lead to her jumping in fright when thunder starts crackling outside the class windows. It takes her three whole seconds to stare out at the rain that’s falling in increased intensity before remembering that Lizzie is already home and Hope is probably hunkered over a car in some garage somewhere, which begs the question, how the hell is she going to get home?

“Crap.” She turns the computer off and stores her contraption away, making sure that the solar panels fold into themselves so that some kid doesn’t prod it out of curiosity and snap them off like last time. She’s out of the classroom and running down the hallway in the futile hope of - what, exactly, she doesn’t know. Outrunning the rain? Whatever it is, she’s not dumb enough to brave walking all the way to the bus stop in this weather lest she wants to drown in her own clothes by the time she gets home.

Her ears perk up when a door slams and chatter starts floating across the hall. Must be another club finishing up, she thinks, and hope swells in her chest before it promptly gets stomped down with her ever-present anxiety. There’s no way she can ask _strangers_ for a lift home. Nuh uh. No way. She’d rather wait the rain out.

A group of girls head her way and she steps to the side to allow them to go past the front doors, glaring at her phone that’s flashing a low-battery sign. Double great. 

“Josie?”

Her head whips around. Penelope grins at her, waving her friends goodbye. “You still here?”

“Uhhh, yeah. Robotics.”

The other girl nods. “We just finished debate. Are you heading home?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m just waiting for the rain to die down.”

“Want a ride?” Penelope offers, leaning on a hip. “I have a car, I can drop you off.”

Josie freezes. Her? In a car? With Penelope? Just the two of them? Recipe for disaster. Or heavy, heavy awkwardness. “Um, I’m fine. I think the weather’s gonna let up soon.” They both cringe when another crackle of thunder booms outside. 

“Seriously?” Penelope raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

She sighs exasperatedly. “It’s a car ride, Josie. Would you really rather stay here for another two hours?”

That’s a fair point. Normally Josie wouldn’t be so opposed to someone offering help, even if it’s Penelope, but her heart is pounding in a really odd rhythm and she’s not sure if sharing an enclosed space with Penelope _again_ is a good idea after what happened last time. Still, Josie doesn’t have a good enough argument to turn her down, and she’s a big girl. She can handle her hormones.

“Okay.”

Rain is pounding down hard on the windshield when Josie rattles off her address. Penelope is a responsible driver, always signaling her turns even though no one’s behind them and stopping at red lights, and it’s annoying because it’s not like Josie needs more reasons to find her attractive. 

“So…,” Penelope drawls.

“Hmm?”

“How’s the sister?”

Josie rolls her eyes. “Do you actually care?”

“Nope,” Penelope says, popping the ‘p’. “Just trying to make conversation.”

“Well, talking about Lizzie isn’t a valid conversation starter.”

“Okay, then. Let’s talk about something else. You told me once that you felt like nobody ever notices you first. Do you still feel that way?” 

Wow. Penelope said all that while focusing on the wheel, looking casual and unbothered, as if her question didn’t suddenly raise the temperature by a hundred degrees. Josie wants to sink into the leather seat.

“I told you that in confidence!”

“And? We’re alone, aren’t we?”

Fair point. Again.

“I don’t know.” Josie feels her cheeks heating up. “It’s something I’ve been dealing with my whole life, so it’s not really a big deal anymore.”

“Josie Saltzman, that is the definition of a big deal,” Penelope deadpans.

“It’s, I don’t know.” Penelope must’ve picked up on her discomfort, because her face softens. “Lizzie had a lot of…behavioral issues growing up, and my parents were gone a lot. You know, work things. So whenever they did have time for us, it was always to take care of her. And I guess I got used to taking care of myself.”

It’s pouring outside, enough that the heavy drops should be echoing throughout the interior of the car, but Josie just feels the silence stretching on when Penelope takes her time answering. She takes a cursory glance out and sees the familiar rows of suburban houses, knows they’re getting close. 

“For what it’s worth, I meant what I said in the party. You’re too bright to stay under anyone’s shadow,” Penelope says earnestly. “You’re like, the smartest, most genuine person I know. For real. People think being popular means having the guts to put yourself out there, but I think true bravery comes from looking at the mirror and knowing the person who stares back. And I feel like you know exactly who you are.” 

Oh. A heartfelt statement. Time to deflect with a crappy joke. “Are you saying that I’m narcissistic?”

Penelope snorts. “Pretty sure that’s warranted if the person is cool.”

Josie ducks her head to hide a smile, and Penelope quickly continues with, “I’m telling you _this_ in confidence, by the way. Bring it up ever again and I’ll deny it.”

“Deal.”

They drive in silence again, but this one feels lighter, and Josie appreciates that they’re not forcing small talk after _that_ conversation. She wants to revel in Penelope’s words, shout from the rooftops that _finally, someone cares enough_ , even though the someone is a person who she used to secretly plot elaborate sabotage schemes for during class. 

But time is a bitch and the universe hates her, because Penelope starts slowing down and asks, “hey, should I take the next left?”

For a second, Josie considers telling her to go straight, take the long way round, but that would be just…weird, wouldn’t it? Does their friendship extend to taking longer car rides just to spend more time with each other? Is she brave enough to take the initiative, be the first to leap off of cliffs and invite people instead of being invited and ask Penelope Park if she wants to hang out a little longer?

“Jo?”

“Yeah, the next left.”

They pull up in front of her house. Josie feels a familiar twinge of disappointment and knows that it’s not the universe’s fault that she’s too much of a chicken, and it’s enough for her to shoot a quick ‘thanks for the ride’ and ‘see you tomorrow’ to Penelope and hightail it outside into the rain, leaving the girl confused in the driver’s seat. 

 _Don’t look back. Don’t look back._ Josie jams the doorbell twice. _Just let her leave and tomorrow everything will go back to the way it was and you won’t ever have to dwell on the fact that Penelope freaking Park made you feel funny inside._

Then she hears a car door slam and by the time she turns around, Penelope is already behind her, water dripping from her hair.

“Did I forget something?” Josie startles. 

“No, no, it’s nothing, just…,” Penelope tilts her head, and Josie’s eyes follow the drop of water trailing from her temple to the corner of her lips. “Bye.” 

“...bye?”

Then she’s off again, only sparing a few seconds to yell, “don’t forget about to do the calc homework,” before her car pulls away and disappears around the corner of the street. Josie’s still staring at it when the door behind her opens and Lizzie pokes her head out.  

“Dude, what? Penelope Park just got wet for you.”

“Lizzie!” She steps inside and glares at her sister. “How did you see all that, anyway?”

“I was peeking from behind the curtains, duh. Now, what the crap was that all about?”

What the crap was that all about, indeed. 

 

* * *

 

Hope slams a frappe on the table and slides it over to Josie, who winces when Hope’s chair makes a screeching sound as she leans forward conspiratorially. 

“So a little bird told me you and Penelope Park had a Great Expectations moment yesterday. Frankly, I’m a little disappointed. I thought you knew that kissing in the rain isn’t as romantic when it comes with the risk of hypothermia.” Hope waggles an accusatory finger at Josie, who proceeds to consider throwing her coffee at her friend.

“That is not even remotely close to the truth. Have you been talking to Lizzie?”

“That I have,” Hope says smugly, slurping on her own iced coffee. “She invited me to her soccer game for this Friday. God, I can’t wait to see her kick ass on the field.”

“Everyone’s invited to the game. It’s a school activity,” Josie points out, but she grins supportively anyway. At least Lizzie managed to do one thing right. 

Hope waves an arm towards the register and calls out, “Hey, Kaleb! Four brownies, two sandwiches, a chocolate croissant, and a stack of chocolate chip cookies, please. And a bagel for her.” She jerks her thumb at Josie’s direction.

“Coming right up,” he nods from behind the counter.

Josie narrows her eyes in judgment. “Jeez, it’s like you want us to get bullied for our dietary choices.”

“Relax. Who’s gonna see us here? Salvatore kids are pretentious enough to never warrant stepping inside a Starbucks. That’s the single perk of going there. We never have to see them outside school hours. Now eat your bagel and shut up.” 

Josie takes a grudging bite of her bagel and subsequently chokes at the sight of someone vaguely familiar standing outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Shit, is that – ?”

“Allison Sinclair? Fucking great.” Hope groans into her paper cup. “What’s she doing out? Shouldn’t she be on a date with some trust fund kid or dazzling hipsters in an art gala or something?”

“I’m not willing to lose braincells thinking about what Allison Sinclair’s after-school routine is,” Josie says, turning back to her bagel. Kaleb gave her extra cream cheese, just as she likes it, and Josie reminds herself to leave a bigger tip later. 

“Why the hell did Penelope ever date her? All Allison has going for her is making freshmen cry and bullying me for my braces all throughout sophomore year. God, what a grade-A jerk. No wonder she got dumped so - so hard…,” Hope trails off. “Um.”

Josie doesn’t look up from slathering cream cheese and strawberry jam. “What?”

“Err, uh…I’m not really, I don’t –,”

“Seriously. What?” She follows Hope’s reluctant gaze out the window and sees Allison walking a little further away than she was before. Someone comes up and taps her on the shoulder, dressed in chinos and a leather jacket, and before Josie can make a joke about the trust-fund kid quip Hope made earlier, she gets a glimpse of the person’s side profile and her heart subsequently drops to her stomach. Her bagel follows suit, flopping onto the plate. “Oh.”

It’s Penelope, nodding a quick ‘hey’ to Allison before crossing the street together. Their hands aren’t linked or anything, but they move with a certain kind of familiarity and Josie hates that she knows just how familiar those two were. 

Kaleb stands next to their table, crossing his arms in solidarity. “Right in front of your salad? Rude.” 

“Want a cookie?” Hope offers meekly.

Josie swallows. She refuses to overthink, because – yeah, they made out once inside a closet for an absurd amount of time for people who claimed to have just done it out of respect of the game rules, and it’s chill, it’s cool, it’s totally fine, because they were both drunk and it was a game and it wasn’t like her heart felt like it was literally going to burst out her chest when they finally stumbled out together and Penelope winked at her while wiping her lips, lazy and coy and incredibly hot. 

Like she said, it was a one-time thing. It’s not like she wants to hold Penelope’s hand, or take long car trips with her and talk about everything and nothing at all, or do something as simple as greet her good morning when she comes to class. She’s harbored feelings of competitiveness and at the very least, disapproving indifference towards Penelope for three years. What the hell suddenly threw that out the window?

It’s this realization that makes her avoid Penelope at all costs during school. Turns out it really isn’t hard at all, because all the girl gives her is a confused look or crossed arms whenever Josie makes yet another excuse that she’s late for the next class, despite sharing the same damn class. Penelope’s short-lived stunt of sitting in Josie and Hope’s shared lunch table doesn’t make another appearance, and by the end of the third day Josie is wholly convinced that she can ride this crush out (shit, it’s a crush?) in a few weeks or so, and get her head back in the game. 

(Her grades aren’t suffering. She’s not _that_ type of person. But she and Penelope both know that the ball is in her court, and it’s stressing her out to replay their past conversations over and over when the time can be better spent on computer projects or her secret guilty pleasure of watching shitty reality TV.)

So that’s how Josie finds herself on that Friday evening, staunchly invested in supporting her sister and their school team and refusing to entertain a single romance-related thought. Teenage hormones? Kept in check. 

“Who ‘re we playing against?” Hope yells in her ear, her flushed cheeks painted with Salvatore yellow and black. 

Josie grabs a handful of popcorn from her. “Mystic Falls High. Apparently they’re our biggest rivals for this season. Lizzie rants a lot about them at home.” Someone accidentally kicks her back, and she curses the lack of spatial comfort provided by the school bleachers.

The referee blows her whistle and the kick-off starts, Salvatore players taking control of the ball from the get-go. Josie can barely see who’s who from where she’s sitting, so all she focuses on is blonde hair and 14 splayed on the back. Hope jumps up and whoops every time Lizzie has the ball and it takes Josie her entire willpower not to tie her down, because it’s on her to give apologetic glances at the annoyed people sitting around them. Which, like, yeah, Hope can be over excited sometimes and other people have the right to be mad about the disturbance, but Josie’s not about to rain on her best friend’s parade. 

Besides, she gets it. She’d usually join Hope in pointing out how hot one of the athletes look all sweaty and powerful running across the field, or gush over how the goalie threw herself sideways to block the ball in a spectacular save, but her heart’s not in it tonight. Somehow, in a weird way, everyone else has lost their romantic appeal to her. 

Josie’s not willing to dissect this in the middle of watching a soccer game. 

Half-time ends with a 3-1 lead by Salvatore, and the crowd is clearly wound up on the inter-school rivalry. Their side of the bleachers go crazy with roars of support and the other side respond with equally loud booing. Even Hope winces at the aggressive display. The teachers yelling for them to calm down does nothing but add to the obnoxious loudness, and combined with the sweltering humidity and the sharp brightness of the pitch lights – it’s too much of a sensory overload. 

Josie gets on her feet and taps Hope on the shoulder. “I’m going to get us some food. Save my seat,” she yells, then slips to the edge of the row and makes her way down to the concession stand. An elbow nearly knocks on her head on the way down and Josie ducks in time. Her patience is running _thin_.

“Got any more overpriced snacks for me, Mil –,” she stops in her tracks. That is definitely not MG behind the table, and the realization makes her heart rate spike. 

Penelope raises her chin in greeting. “His shift ended a while ago. It’s my turn now.” Then spreads her arm across the table in a ta-da motion. 

“Your turn?” The question falls out of Josie’s lips even as she’s gearing to hightail it and hide under Hope’s arm for the rest of the evening, hunger be damned.

“I’m in the student council? We’re in charge of running these kinds of things.”

“Yeah, I - yeah. I knew that.” She’s absolutely positive that her cheeks are red right now, even though neither of them has moved any closer to each other, Josie awkwardly shuffling her feet and Penelope standing still behind the booth. 

“Huh.”

Neither of them say anything for a while, and the lack of…anything from Penelope is just weird. Josie’s used to her intrusive quips and teasing comments, so having a bland, neutral conversation with her feels off.

She’s about to just take the fucking popcorn and get on with it, but then Penelope’s shoulders fall imperceptibly and her eyes drop to the floor in disappointmemt and hey, maybe she does owe Penelope an explanation? Even though her stomach is squirming with the anxiety of confrontation. Even though her tongue feels heavy and she doesn’t really know how to open the conversation. Like, the least she can do to Penelope is not be a shitty friend, right? 

_Jump off the cliff, dude._

“So, I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Yeah, hard not to notice,” Penelope says drily.

“It’s just.” Josie takes a step closer, wringing her hands. “You know, I’ve never done this with anyone. This, meaning, go through a seriously confusing and emotionally turbulent period where I keep thinking about you, and I try to ignore those thoughts but then you keep flirting with me and so those thoughts come back and I’m just left –,”

“Wait, you thought I was flirting with you?” Penelope interrupts. Her face is still impassive and Josie just. Wants to launch herself into space where no one can see her embarrassment and implode.

“Oh, you - you weren’t? I, um, this is –,”

Penelope breaks into a grin. “I’m just messing with you.” She moves around the table and strides over to where Josie is standing, leaving a few feet of space between them. Josie can smell Penelope’s perfume (doesn’t know if it’s sandalwood or patchouli or whatever, though. People don’t normally have the ability to distinguish perfume scents from smell alone) and – her body is embarrassingly attuned to the fact that it’s the same one she was wearing during that party. “You know, I wasn’t sure if you realized that I was.”

“Um, was what?”

“Flirting with you.”

“Oh.” 

“I mean, we made out once, didn’t we? And then you kept sending me mixed signals, so.”

Josie shoves her lightly, face still as red as a tomato. “You were the one who kept giving me mixed signals. Like, like –,”

“Sitting on your lunch table one time and giving you a car ride home when it was raining?” 

“...it sounds less profound when you say it like that.”

Penelope throws her head back and laughs, and her eyes shine bright under the shadow cast by the bleachers. She looks so light, so free, that for a second Josie gives into the voice that has been ringing in her head for weeks, the one that keeps telling her to _do now and overthink later_ instead of the opposite, and steps forward on impulse.

She kisses Penelope first this time, soft and open-mouthed, and judging by Penelope’s small gasp, they both weren’t expecting it to happen. 

“Wow.” Penelope blinks.

“Hmm.”

“Was that a good hmm or a bad hmm?”

Josie shrugs nonchalantly, but she can’t stop herself from smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. “I’ll answer when you take me out?”

“Oh. _Oh_. Okay. Yes. Let’s.”

Josie stares at Penelope, and Penelope stares back, and they’re both drinking each other in under the noise of the crowd and the bright artificial lights and it’s okay because they’re both young and nervous and there’s a whole life ahead of them so it’s okay to take it slow, it’s okay to take their time. Josie wants to ask Penelope Park if she wants to hang out a little longer. 

“Stop flirting and get me my food,” Hope hollers from the lowest step of the bleachers, leaning on the rails. She shoots a thumbs up when Josie glares at her direction. 

Two voices ring out, perfectly in sync. “Shut up, Mikaelson.”

**Author's Note:**

> lmk what you guys think!
> 
> tumblr @ queersupergirls


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